Season 4 Episode 13: Who’ll Stop the Rain
January 7, 1990
A rainstorm gets into the house, and Al goes up on the roof to deal with it along with the television antenna, which is the real priority. What follows is one of the most sustained pieces of physical comedy the series ever attempted: a man on a wet roof in a storm, a leaking kitchen, and a sequence of falls and electrocutions that the production staged with real commitment.
Katey Sagal named this her favourite episode of the series in the ninth-season retrospective, and the clips chosen for that special make the case, Peggy tilting her umbrella back to catch the leak in her glass without getting up, and Al accidentally electrocuting himself in bed, followed by Peggy’s observation that the room smells like ham.
The episode was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Editing for a Series, the second of the series’ two nominations in that category, after “Requiem for a Dead Barber.” The storm sequences are the reason: cutting a man falling off a roof several times so that it reads as funny rather than alarming is a technical problem, and the episode solves it.
Marcy’s subplot has Steve taking a job at a pet store and Marcy being bitten by one of the stock, which is a smaller joke but the one that sets up the end of their marriage: Steve’s dissatisfaction with banking is being established here, three episodes before he leaves. This was the first episode of the series to air in the 1990s, and by production code it was filmed before “It’s a Bundyful Life.”
Episode Facts
- Original air date: January 7, 1990, the first episode of the series to air in the 1990s
- Season 4, Episode 13, and the 70th episode of the series
- Written by Kevin Curran
- Directed by Gerry Cohen
- No guest cast is credited.
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